"Ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein."
Caveat lector

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Thursday, September 07, 2006

A little more on depravity

Continuing a little further with depravity and historical information: The Reformed churches are in general agreement with the Baptists on the subject of original sin and total depravity (in fact, the London Baptist Confession copies the Westminster Confession on that article), while the Restoration/Stone/Campbell movement churches reject both original sin and total depravity.

"In the Westminster Confession the doctrine of Total Inability is stated as follows: — 'Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from good, and dead in sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto.'

"This doctrine of Total Inability, which declares that men are dead in sin, does not mean that all men are equally bad, nor that any man is as bad as he could be, nor that any one is entirely destitute of virtue, nor that human nature is evil in itself, nor that man‘s spirit is inactive, and much less does it mean that the body is dead. What it does mean is that since the fail man rests under the curse of sin, that he is actuated by wrong principles, and that he is wholly unable to love God or to do anything meriting salvation." – Loraine Boettner

"Infants do not and cannot commit sin. Neither do they inherit sin! 'The soul that sinneth, it shall die'...Ezekiel 28:15 teaches that we are perfect, or without sin, as infants; that iniquity is found in us at a later time in life. Ezekiel 18:20 teaches that we do not inherit sin." -- Bible Question and Answer Book , by David Amos (pp. 164, 167)